Tag Archives: team

A Chant and a Prayer (Tanner Palocsik)

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Title: A Chant and a Prayer

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Magic Superstition, sympathetic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: C.B.
  • Date Collected: 11-1-21

Informant Data:

  • C.B. is a 21-year-old student athlete at Dartmouth College in the class of 2023. He is from Texas and is on the football team. He was raised very closely to his family and has a special relationship to his father.  

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Superstitions are important to sports teams. In football there are many players on the team that all contribute to the win. In C.B.’s case, Texas football is one of the most serious things in this country. They have a ton of pride in their teams and victory.     
  • Social Context: Team’s rely on every guy to contribute toward a winning effort. C.B.’s superstition came from his father who may have learned it from his father before him or somewhere else, he wasn’t certain of the whole chain. He is strongly religious in the Christian faith and performs his superstition before every game. This is something that puts Cameron in the most optimal mindset heading into

Item:

  • The item here is a superstition unique to C.B. Before every game he calls his father on the phone and says a prayer right before he is about to go on the field. He believes that God’s power gives him strength and confidence going into the game and that this will help him perform to the best of his abilities. Another is a team superstition where they all say the same chant before heading out for the game.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

  • “I pray with my dad before going out to the field before every game. I started this my freshman year in high school when he would physically be with me to do it but now I just call him before each game right as I’m about to go out to the field and he is expecting it as well. This one originated from my faith and just the fact that I want to glorify God before anything else in my life. I definitely believe strongly in this one.”
  • “As far as team stuff goes, we all start chanting “juice” together loudly in the locker room. Then one of the leaders on the team (it will be the same guy for that whole year) will chant “juice check” three times and then we all finish it off with one more shout saying “juice” And that tradition has been going since I’ve been here”

Informant’s Comments:

  • He believes in these superstitions and believes in their power to help him perform and the team get a win.

Collector’s Comments:

  • I think this is a very powerful superstition. It clearly has some power that enables him and their team to perform. They have an extremely good record and won the Ivy League Championship last year.

Collector’s Name:

Tanner Palocsik

Dartmouth College

Russia 013 Fall 2021

Professors Apresyan and Gronas

“Positive Vision” (Tanner Palocsik)

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Title: “Positive Vision”

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Magic Superstition, Homeopathic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: J.H.
  • Date Collected: 11-4-21

Informant Data:

  • J.H. is a 20-year-old student athlete at Dartmouth College in the class of 2023. He is from Stamford, CT and is on the diving team. He was raised in a family of divers, as his father was also his diving coach.  

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Sports teams always have different rituals or superstitions they follow so that they have success in their sport. Diving is no different. For diving, you are expected to perform with perfection every time. It is a difficult sport with many intricacies.    
  • Social Context: Within the team atmosphere, every teammate relies on each other to perform to the best of their abilities. Team’s need to have every guy pulling the rope in the same direction for success, so it’s important that every person does whatever they can to reassure their performance. J.H.’s superstition is one that is performed right as they walk out the door. His team has always done this superstition as someone from Dartmouth unknown in the past brought it to their locker room.

Item:

  • The item here is a superstition the entire team has. There is a sign above their door that every guy taps before they exit their locker room for the meet. The sign says, “Positive Vision”. In addition to performing this action, the team also has a pregame chant which can be seen in the picture below. (Unfortunately, I was not able to get a photo of the locker room sign.)

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

  • “Sort of a good luck charm we have is, as we walk out the locker room door, we all tap a sign that says, ‘Positive Vision’. This sign has been in our locker room for many years and has always been a team tradition. We also have a pregame chant that dates back decades if not centuries”

Informant’s Comments:

  • He believes in these superstitions and thinks if the team doesn’t do these superstitions each game, they will have bad luck and won’t perform well as a team.

Collector’s Comments:

  • I think these superstitions are unique and interesting. The chant is something that is secret to their team and so my informant wouldn’t share the words. I also thought it was cool that he said these superstitions date back decades. He had no idea when or how they started but it’s something their team has consistently practiced since.

Collector’s Name:

Tanner Palocsik

Dartmouth College

Russia 013 Fall 2021

Professors Apresyan and Gronas

The Lucky Horseshoe (Tanner Palocsik)

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Title: The Lucky Horseshoe

General Information about Item:

  • Genre: Magic Superstition, Homeopathic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: R.B.
  • Date Collected: 11-4-21

Informant Data:

  • R.B. is a 21-year-old student athlete at Dartmouth College in the class of 2023. He is from London, England and is on the Rugby team. Being from England, rugby is a very popular sport in his background. He had family members that played and helped him adapt the sport into his pride.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Sports teams often have some tradition that the team practices throughout their season that is meant to bring good luck to the whole team. In the rugby culture, they also have many players that contribute to the team effort, so it’s important to have something the entire team participates in. It creates better team chemistry and comradery.
  • Social Context: This superstition is performed right when the whole team is about to enter the field. Rugby is a physical sport so they do this for luck of the win but also for luck of good health and strength.

Item:

  • The item here is a superstition for their whole team. They all tap the top of the locker room door where they have a horseshoe hanging. This is meant to bring good luck, strength to their bodies and good health.

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

  • “Before every game we tap the horseshoe at the top of our door. This is a common superstition in the Rugby world and something our team takes very seriously. I think it truly helps us to muster up strength and mental stability while trying to focus in on the competition at hand. Each game is a learning experience, and we try to take a lot of pride in our culture and tradition. The rugby team here has been doing this for many years and all the older guys reiterate that we must keep it going as long as we can and continue to pass it down to the younger guys.”

Informant’s Comments:

  • He believes this truly brings the team luck and that it will be something that will stick with Dartmouth Rugby for many years to come.  

Collector’s Comments:

  • I think this is a strong superstition and one that every team should try to encapsulate in some way. It’s a good way to create team bonding over a common superstition and get everyone believing in the same things.

Collector’s Name:

Tanner Palocsik

Dartmouth College

Russia 013 Fall 2021

Professors Apresyan and Gronas

Left First (Jack Cameron)

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Title: Left First

General Information about Item:

  • Magic superstition, homeopathic
  • Language: English
  • Country of Origin: United States
  • Informant: JM
  • Date Collected: 11/08/21

Informant Data:

  • JM is a 21 year old male Dartmouth student in the class of 2023.  He was born and raised in the areas surrounding New Haven, Connecticut. James is a member of the Varsity Football team at Dartmouth, playing the position of Offensive Line. Away from football, James enjoys music and is an avid fan of the old folk band Carlyle Fraser.

Contextual Data:

  • Cultural Context: Football teams often stretch before their games and practices.  Football is known and practiced as a very combative sport, with plenty of injury and physical toll. Stretching before a game reduces risk of injury, and is often led by seniors or captains on any given team. Offensive Linemen tend to be the biggest people on the football team.
  • Social Context: This specific superstition pertains to all Offensive Linemen on the Dartmouth football team. While this is not necessarily the case for all of the positions, the interviewee was adamant that the Offensive Line face perhaps the most physical toll of all the positions, as their job is to block the defense from tackling their teammates with the ball.

Item:

A stretching routine is very common. Often led by team leaders, seniors or captains, pre-game stretching routines take place in almost all sports across the world. Each stretching routine can be different depending on the sport, but this routine has the Offensive Linemen always stretch the left body part before their right.  

Associated file (a video, audio, or image file):

Transcript:

“This is me stretching my left hip flexor. Our pregame stretching superstition always starts with the left side first. Left hamstring, then right hamstring. Left calf, then right calf, etc. I think it started almost 10 years ago because it’s luckier to stretch on the heart side first, that way if something gets banged up on the right side we can always say ‘it’s a long way from the heart’ and keep on moving forward.”

Informant’s Comments:

Found this to be interesting and now found that I do lots of things in my day left side first. Put on pants left leg before the right, socks and shoes left before right and such.

Collector’s Comments:

I found this pregame superstition to be quite interesting, especially since it has since carried over into his everyday life. I think that protecting the heart side is an interesting concept that I would highly consider incorporating into my own life for a feeling of safety.  

Collector’s Name:

Jack Cameron

Dartmouth College

Russ013 21F

Prof. Apresyan and Prof. Gronas

Fall Photoshoot

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General Information:

  • Customary Folklore: Tradition
  • Language: English
  • Country: Hanover, NH, USA

Informant Data:

  • Spring Y. Yu is from Wading River, NY. She was born in 1997. She started skating at the age of five. In terms of family, her sister, Iris Yu, class of ’14, also skated as a child and at Dartmouth College as a member of the DFSC. On campus, Spring is a Studio Art Major and is a dancer in Dartmouth’s Street Soul.

Contextual Data:

  • Social Context/Cultural Context: Every fall, the Dartmouth Figure Skating Club has a fall photoshoot at the BEMA, an outdoor amphitheater on Dartmouth’s campus. Every member dresses in nice clothing, such as Fall dresses and button down shirts and slacks. Multiple photos are taken by a professional photographer at different photogenic locations in the BEMA. It is unclear how the tradition started, but the interviewee believes it began well before even her older sister was a student at Dartmouth College.
  • This piece was collected during an interview about DFSC with Spring on the the First Floor of Baker Berry Library

Item:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Associated audio file:

Transcript of Associated File:

Spring: “So the photoshoot is something that we do every year, in the fall. Um, it’s just that the entire team basically goes to the BEMA,  and we take pretty pictures, and its just like a pretty fun way to get together, and get to know whose on the team. And overall its a pretty fun time!”

Collector’s Comments:

While it might not appear important at first, the fall photoshoot is the DFSC’s first big event of the year where, as Spring mentions in her interview, everyone finally gets to meet everyone else on the team. The tradition invite the team members to bond with each other through photos and gorgeous scenery. They are able to act silly and goof off with fellow members outside of the serious atmosphere of the  ice rink, and bond with each other through this tradition.

Tags/Keywords:

Photoshoot, fall foilage, team, tradition.

Collected by John Gilmore